The effectiveness of Monkley Style

[dingyuan]

Hi

 

Just came across an article about Monkey Style "Hou Quan" in some health magainze, it said that by practicing Monkey style it will improve your health and might help you to live longer. Is Monkey style something like Tai Chi that can also improve your personal health?

 

Oh yeah, just how effective is Monkey style? I had never seen anyone using monkey style in combat, is it effective or is it just full of useless fancy and funny monkey movements??

[MenteReligieuse]

Monkey style is very physicial, lots of gymnasticish movements. Personally I wouldn't fight in monkey style but like for every animal styles there are stuff you can take and incorporate.

 

And for the silly gestures and faces, supposedly its to confuse your opponent. Making him beleive you don't take it seriously or what ever.

[manuel]

I have not trained Ho Quan, but Tai Shing Pek Kwar with Paulie Zink. I can attest to its fighting capabilities. If you ever have a chance to really look at it, you can see a lot of basic Kung Fu strikes in its repetoire. It might be done lower at times then other styles, and there might be some advanced fancy moves that may not be applicable in a street fight for the average practioner like me. However overall I felt I was learning an effective art. My training consisted of basic Kung fu moves to develop speed, power, and timing. Paulie did not stress the art as a street fighting method, or something to be used in competition. This would change the way that he learned and taught. He advised those who wanted to work on their street fighting, or those who wanted to participate in tournaments to get some extra training on the side with him, or train with kickboxers and wrestlers, and boxers.

 

As far as other Monkey Kung Fu practioners that I know of. I was told that in the 1970's the man they call the Monkey King in Hong Kong trained a group of fighters who won for a few years in the bare knuckled matches they held in Hong Kong or Macau.

 

 

 

My teachers, teacher Choi Chat Ling, I was told, bears the scars of many a fight he engaged in with the Triads in Hong Kong before he left for the USA. He refused to train Triad members in Kung Fu and so they would take it out in the alley. I was told these were armed fights and so the stakes were a lot higher.

 

hope this helps with your questions.

[Shane]

Its very cool to watch and looks very physicaly demanding, but as far as a whole I would not choose to train it. Like it was said already on this topic it probably has some good techniques that could be pulled out and used but as a whole its not for me.

[dingyuan]

The movements of Monkey style is really hard to master. All those turns and flips, I guess you must be someone with a solid Wushu background in order to learn it well.

[manuel]

As far as my abilities in gymnastics or Wu Shu, they are weak. One of the keys to Monkey Kung Fu is the flexibility training. A typical class would have us practice what Paulie called Taoist Yoga for three or four hours before we moved to the more martial movements. In my opinion , i found three streches most valubale to developing good Monkey techniques: The splits ( both ways) touching your chin to your toe with the legs straight, and putting the leg behind the head,

 

No disrespect intended to Wu Shu or Capoiera( which I trained in for a few years), is that the more one flips around, the more one runs the risk of neglecting to work on powerful kicks and punches, slaps, etc. to take the opponents out and put him, them on the ground fast. I have seen, in capoiera rodas where some advanced practioners have been able to flip around to build up some tremndous momentum to strike a guy hard, but it is more the exception then the rule, in my opinion. In training Monkey Kung Fu, we worked the basic moves common to Northern styles of Kung Fu a lot, in order to develop speed, power and timing. after that we worked on the extreme moves, that many people associate with the art.

[Hudson]

Is Monkey style something like Tai Chi that can also improve your personal health?

 

Practicing pretty much any of the traditional arts will improve your personal health if you make them a way of life. Look at Gichin Funakoshi, who lived to be quite old (and healthy!) from the practice of karate.

 

Unfortunately we have lives and can't all make kung fu or karate or what have you into a way of life. We often have to supplement something as serious or time consuming like MA into little blocks of time for certain nights a week. Since I am young I have plenty of time to dedicate and I train seriously with the intent of becoming a master and continuing the heritage of my style. And I believe if I practice daily and eat right than I too, can live a long and healthy life like so many martial arts instructors do.